迈斯纳效应是超导体从一般状态相变至超导态的过程中对磁场的排斥现象，于1933年时被瓦尔特·迈斯纳与罗伯特·奥克森菲尔德在量度超导锡及铅样品外的磁场时发现。在有磁场的情况下，样品被冷却至它们的超导相变温度以下。在相变温度以下时，样品几乎抵消掉所有里面的磁场。他们只是间接地探测到这个效应；因为超导体的磁通量守恒，当里面的场减少时，外面的场就会增加。这实验最早证明超导体不只是完美的导电体，并为超导态提供一个独特的定义性质。

The Meissner effect is the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state. The German physicists Walther Meissner and Robert Ochsenfeld discovered this phenomenon in 1933 by measuring the magnetic field distribution outside superconducting tin and lead samples. The samples, in the presence of an applied magnetic field, were cooled below their superconducting transition temperature. Below the transition temperature the samples cancelled nearly all interior magnetic fields. They detected this effect only indirectly because the magnetic flux is conserved by a superconductor: when the interior field decreases, the exterior field increases. The experiment demonstrated for the first time that superconductors were more than just perfect conductors and provided a uniquely defining property of the superconductor state.